You ride the holy horses

My prose poem "Mari Mild" is now online at Through the Gate. It was written in April for ashlyme, strange_selkie, and the Mari Lwyd. The rest of the issue is amazing: loss, leaving, writing, remembrance. I am very glad to read it this morning before I move.

The mattress goes this afternoon, and the laptop, and the four books I've been reading these last few nights, and the last pictures and boxes of extraneous things. And then I am out of this apartment, where I moved after such headaches in March. I do not regret it.

September will be a month of limbo. I do not regret it, either.

Distracting? No—inspiring

With the exception of some fragile items being stored at my parents' house and a file cabinet of papers I never moved in March, all of my worldly possessions are now at derspatchel's for the next month. There were as usual more extraneous things than expected. The vinyl cover for the futon mattress was less durable than hoped. (My father patched it with garbage bags and duct tape.) I left the keys on the kitchen table for adrian_turtle's new housemate and closed the door on my bedroom for the last time. As I had done in New Haven, I wrote my name and a short message on the wall with my finger. No one will see it, but it's there. And then I was gone.

In about half an hour, I am leaving to wait in line for the HFA's Noir All Night. Because I got all my stuff moved by this afternoon and it was my reward to myself. Even if I fall asleep at the four-hour mark, I don't care. I will see what there is before then.

My poem "Defixio" has been accepted by Not One of Us. I wrote it in February, after my parents' house was broken into and several small items of emotional value stolen; it's a curse. I like to think it worked and the results just didn't make the news.

Now I'm here.